Bare With Me
by August8th
Summary: Kind of along the terms of a brave new world. A society that judges people with social ranks that people commonly use in our everyday lives. It actually takes work to be cool, the cooler you are the more power and influence you have in the rank structure.
1. Intro

Bare with me

Kind of along the terms of a brave new world. A society that judges people with social ranks that people commonly use in our everyday lives. It actually takes work to be cool, the cooler you are the more power and influence you have in the rank structure.

An outcast gets mistaken for a 'cool' and gets put into a scool, instead of school and just observes how the higher society acts. Putting up with peoples accusations of him being an outcast, or even a loser.

Controversy spreads and the outcast is exposed. He fights for his right to be in the scool and shines a light on everyone's ignorance.

The outcast goes through life changing peoples ideas and beliefs on equality showing the it's cool people that are corrupting society and other classes.

There are few cool people, world and societal leaders, good talkers, generally successful people.

The Structure

Elders

Awesome

Coolest

Cool

Greats

Hip

Groovy

Happening

Alright – Followers

Outcasts

Losers

Rank defined in preschool through a series of basic tests. Once a persons rank is defined there are few opportunities to change rank. Another test entering high school determines whether or not they go to 'cool' school or not. If someone is deemed a certain class, the same results are usually present in continuing generations of that family. If a child from an alright family scores above alright they are taken from their alright families and put into hip ones.

Ranking has little to do with intelligence, rather how people behave in public. If a cool person wants to know something they demand it from other ranks. If a loser/outcast wants to know something they either have to figure it out for themselves or pay a higher rank to teach them.

Losers have to pay outcasts, alrights have to pay the hip, and outcast cannot learm from a cool becaust their ranks are too far apart.

Education is really only for the top three main classes. The rest have to find shit jobs doing stuff they don't want to do.

The only way a cool can lose position is if they break their laws. Associating with an outcast can make a cool into an outcast if other cool people find out.

Within each ranking there are sub rankings. Some cool people can be cooler than others, and the same with other classes.

- Awesome – Total power, very few

Cool- Coolest – Smartest of the cools

Cool – Upper class individuals

Greats

- Groovy – Almost cool

Hip - Happening – Showing signs of knowing how to be cool

Keen – lowest of high class

Greats -  Greats are in between hip and cool. They are not popular but they are the ones that make the decisions or come up with the solutions to societal problems. Greats do not have to pay for anything and they get the most education but not very much fun. Their lives are dedicated to making society better. Ironically it's probably making it better for everyone except themselves.

Alright – Is sort of middle class people on the verge of becoming keen, but not quite there yet. Alrights are the coolest of the lower society.

Outcast- People that do the jobs that most do not want to do. Janitors, maintenance techs, the dirtier jobs of society.

Loser – Rejected by all, once classified as a loser no one can escape. Looked down upon by everyone. They can only acquire the shittiest jobs and most are homeless without welfare or aid.

Followers – not specific to any rank, usually alrights can get away with being followers, which are people that pretend to be a different rank. If someone is caught following there are degrees of penalties depending on the severity of the impersonation.

Elders – rank can change with age. Inevitably, cool people get old, some loose their cool touch. They are not demoted though, simply placed in a general category of elders. Elders do have a say in things and are usually top candidates for teachers, distributing past cool methods.

For alrights, outcasts and losers they are taught by each other, making sure that none of them learn to be cool, and their age does not generally matter, usually never considered an elder.

How it started

Some time in the 60's the terms for each rank were created. Prior to that everyone had followed each other. There were only leaders and followers. The leaders were the people that ran to countries and massive corporations. They decided this rank structure would work and used it. They had started with good intentions figuring that if each person had a rank, people would know who to look to for insight and help, but something went wrong and the ego boost that people received from obtaining the rank of 'cool' corrupted them and they acted higher than everyone else. The other groups had primarily been followers and they believed every single like the cool people fed to them, things like 'nothing is free, especially social skills and schooling. They convinced the other groups that it was the right thing to do


	2. Chapter 1

I grew up an outcast, my family was placed into this in the beginning, determined by my great-grandfather's income; our family had been classified.

In my adolescence I learned that all of the inevitable angst that came to me was through my peers. Through overexposure of hatred and segregation that had been entrenched upon modern day society; I learned not to react, not to take it to heart the fact that I could not be considered successful no matter how hard I tried.

The thing was about the whole classification thing is that the mindset of absolute ignorance only took place in the most powerful people; when a person was classified 'cool' they took the title to the extreme. 'What's your rank? Huh? Huh?' They would come hurriedly up to people and ask. If you told them anything lower than them they'd push you or give you a hard slap on the back and say 'Hah, so what happened? Goddamn I can't stand lazy pieces of shit like you.' or something equally as derogatory.

It became a war. Silent, cold, but it was a war to us. Because we could not obtain the title, we didn't lose our fuckin minds, and we got our shit together, learned to learn even though the 'greats' had always assumed that there was no possible way.

Schools were something else, no teachers, just random daycare attendants that would chance shifts every half an hour. At first these people were just picked out of a hat by the Council of Elders. So basically we were lucky to get, at best, an 'alright' teacher. Most of the time it would be a 'loser' janitor or something, sacrificing a lunch break to make sure a bunch of kids stayed quiet and stared at the walls of the classroom. Along those walls there were strips of electronic tickertape with messages constantly streaming across. 'Clean up good' 'You will all be garbage men' 'Pick up a can, put it in the bag' continuously scrolled across the students eyes. We learned we were the shit on society's shoes, no matter what we did we were nothing, and supposedly nothing could ever change that.

Luckily, there were loopholes, many unpredictable factors that couldn't have been foreseen back when this shit was enacted.

When this all happened, no one even bothered to inform the lower classes, parts of society deemed 'under-the-radar'. The 'greats' spread the message subtly for a few years until most of the coolest had been established, and then, when everyone in the higher classes was informed, society changed.

Currency subtly changed, a small marking on the face verified who was who, only those that had contact with the greats had the marked money to distribute.

People started to realize something was different by the reactions upon purchasing items. For example, my great grandmother first realized she was an 'outcast' when she purchased a dress for fifty bucks. After she had handed the clerk the cash he told her that the price was now triple the tag. She questioned about the sudden incline and his answer was 'well, you're just gonna have to pay more if you want to look decent' She freaked out and got dragged out of the store by security, but after a while everyone just sort of took their place in a very confused manner.

Eventually this confusion in everyone led to brief inquisition and then very rapidly turned into rage.

Oddly enough the tactics that the 'coolest' used to derail attempts to protest actually did persuade people into believing that everything was how it should be.

When all of the outcasts and losers collected for a rally, 'We're not losers!' was the campaign name and the message. The retort was 'well, if you weren't losers, you wouldn't be having this rally.' which unfortunately put everyone in their place.


End file.
